It certainly sounds like you developed some realization that you were dreaming during the dream toward the end, which qualifies as a lucid dream. The illusion of dreams occurring within dreams and then waking up within a dream while still dreaming (a so-called false awakening) is quite common, too, with or without lucidity. Since the dream-within-a-dream and the awakenings are just part of the dream itself, it's still a lucid dream if you knew you were dreaming at any point during them.
External stimuli like light can certainly affect dreams. I've had many occasions where I suspect this has happened. Sometimes my eyes will happen to open just before my dream ends and I wake up, which often results in an odd mingling of dream imagery and waking-life imagery coming through my eyes.
Very dark, shadowy dreams might also be an example of non-REM dreams. Usually, most of the dreams we remember happen during REM (rapid eye movement) sleep stages; these are the ones with vivid, waking-life-like imagery, but sometimes dreams happen during non-REM periods. Anecdotally, it seems NREM dreams often have a different nature, such as being dark, having weak or no visual imagery, and being more thought- or emotion-based. For most people, most of the non-REM occurs during the first few hours of sleep (with the last hours of sleep consisting of mostly REM), so if you typically experience these early in your sleep, it might be possible that they are non-REM dreams.
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